Thursday, September 01, 2005

This post was originally dated 9-1-05. It will be bumped up to the top of the blog daily for the following week. Please check below for new posts.

Update: To all who have linked to this post, thank you!

Also, to all donors, past or future, please take the time to register your donation or pledge here. (Navigate the "charity" menu by hitting "a" repeatedly until the Armed Forces Retirement Home shows up and the "weblog" menu by hitting "g" repeatedly.) This step ensures that this blog will move higher on the charity leader board. While I am not especially anxious to achieve fame and glory as a fundraiser, I suspect that a higher ranking here might get more attention for the AFRH and thereby encourage more donations. Thanks again!

As part of the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina that is taking place in the blogosphere, I have decided to ask my readers to donate to the Armed Forces Retirement Home, whose facility in Gulfport, Mississippi took severe damage from the storm. The Washington Postreports on the destruction.

Officials said there was little choice but to relocate the Gulfport residents, who spent a harrowing Monday huddled in their 11-story beachfront facility as the storm came ashore virtually on their doorstep.

Timothy C. Cox, chief operating officer in charge of both homes, said 10 feet of water surged into the ground floor of the Gulfport home, ruining the kitchen, dining room, bowling alley and long-term care facility and submerging the emergency generator. The hurricane also blew down the home's water tower.

There was no power, no running water, limited phone service and food for only a few days. Plus, the weather was hot and humid yesterday. "Every hour makes it worse," Cox said.

The residents had to be moved, and they will probably not be able to return for months, he said.

Another blogger who has also adopted the facility, Rick Lippincott, provides the following contact information for donations.

AFRHPAO 13053700 N. Capitol St. NWWashington, DC 20011-8400

You can call for further information at: (800) 332-3527.

The AFRH is requesting toiletries and monetary donations to its trust fund.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home is the facility to care for aging veterans of the US Military. The Gulfport MS facility was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and over 400 elderly vets must be transported to the AFRH facility in Washington DC. The AFRH is in need of donated toiletry items, or contributions to the trust fund used to operate the facility. The residents are old, many are ill, and they've lost the only home they have left. Some of them may not survive to return to it. They fought to defend our freedom. Isn't that worth a couple of cans of shaving cream and a bottle of shampoo?

It's worth a fair bit more. I'm sending a check.

Lippincott also makes the following suggestion: "consider throwing in a short note that says 'Thanks for serving.'"

My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for getting this relief effort off the ground.